


Close to Death

by lar_laughs



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: avengerskink, Fluff, Gen, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 12:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lar_laughs/pseuds/lar_laughs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha gets food poisoning and the team can't figure out what to do with her.</p><p>Written for the prompt:  Poor Tasha has terrible food poisoning, laid out on the couch in her jammies. Everyone else offers home remedies for upset tummies.</p><p>No one appeared to be willing to come up with any home remedies.  This is what came out of my pen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close to Death

Natasha has come back from missions on the verge of death, bleeding out of so many wounds it’s hard to know where to start patching her up. She’s been injected with drug cocktails that take days to come down from and require padded restraints. There was even the time she broke so many of the bones in her foot, the medics weren’t sure she would be able to keep it. 

But she’s back from what she told everyone was just a night out on the town and she doesn’t look good. Considering that she’s emptied the contents of her stomach (several times over) into a trash can she drug over to the couch and her skin is more gray than pale, she looks less good than she’s ever looked.

Seeing Natasha on the couch, still fully clothed but not really fully functional, has everyone a little freaked out. It hasn’t escaped anyone’s notice that she could still kill all of them with only a few seconds notice, which is probably why they’re keeping their distance.

Clint was the first one to find her, seeing as he always checks on her when he gets home. They have a strange relationship that no one completely understands. Tony’s pretty sure they’re not currently having sex but he won’t rule out that they ever had sex because they have a strange connection that he can’t imagine anyone could have without first sleeping with each other.

“Are you alive?” he asked. When she attempted to get a hand up (most likely to give him the fingers) but couldn’t quite attempt it, he went running for reinforcements. “Come quick,” he shouted into the comm-system that could pick up a whisper from across the room with the proper command that he couldn’t understand on a good day. “Natasha is dying.”

His words have a magic in that even Bruce came bolting out of his lab. When everyone is crowded in the doorway, Clint points to Natasha’s prone body. “What do you think is wrong with her?”

Tony covers his mouth with his hands, trying not to imagine the thousands of angry disease-carrying germs that were suddenly clogging the towers filtering system. “Jarvis, we’re going to need a sweep of this sector. Dump the air instead of recirculating it.” He points to Pepper. “Make her well.”

“Me?” The word is loaded with both irritation and flat-out anger. “Why me?”

“Because you’re... I was going to say female. That’s going to be bad for me if I finish the sentence that way, isn’t it?”

“Damn straight, mister.” But Pepper took a cautious step into the room. “Can we get you anything, Natasha? Some soup, perhaps?”

When this produces a groan and a more forceful clutch of the trash can, Pepper moves back with the rest of the group. “I tried. I don’t think she has a cold.”

“How do you know that? You haven’t touched her to check if her skin is warm or not.” Tony seems intent on Pepper being the solution to all their problems. He pushes at her shoulder with the hand that wasn’t protecting his own body from any airborne pathogens. “Go. Feel her forehead.”

Pepper put up her hands to ward off any further attacks, backing up to make sure that she is well and truly away from anyone that might decide to push her back into the room of sickness.. “No. I’m not going to feel her forehead. She doesn’t want to eat and I think you feed a cold.”

“Feed a cold? That’s preposterous!” This from Clint who is also edging out of the room. He feels he should stick around but really, he did all he could for his friend. “If you feed it, it might stick around.”

“It’s not a cold.” Bruce edges past everyone. When he actually puts the back of his hand against Natasha’s clammy forehead, the rest of the group gasps. “If anything, it’s probably food poisoning. Did any of you eat the same thing as she did recently?”

Clint’s sudden paleness and the _Eep_ he makes is almost comical. “I did,” he admits as he stops trying to leave the room. “We both had the soup at that little place around the corner on Thursday. Am I going to die, too?”

“She’s not dying. And neither are you.” Bruce crooks a finger at Steve who is the only one who hasn’t moved or said a word since arriving. “Go turn on the shower, would you? Don’t make it too hot, though. And you,” he points at Clint after Steve goes to do his bidding, “aren’t going to die. Go get me a pair of Natasha’s pajama’s. Something comfortable.”

Clint turns bright red. “She doesn’t wear pajamas.”

“Fine. Go get me something of yours. A t-shirt or something.”

“I haven’t done any laundry this week.”

Bruce turns toward Clint very slowly, setting his face into the _don’t try my patience, little man_ face that gets people moving pretty quickly if they’re at all aware of The Other Guy. “Then go get something of mine from my room. It should take you two minutes to get there so I’m going to give you five minutes. Anything more than that and I’ll know you were snooping in my stuff.”

By the time Clint arrives back in the room with the first shirt he came across, Steve is standing outside the bathroom with very pink cheeks. “They’re in there,” he informs Clint as if he couldn’t figure that out for himself from the moist heat escaping from under the closed door and the strident instructions Bruce is giving in a loud voice. “I was in there, too. I’m... I”m not good at that type of thing.”

Clint just nods. When Bruce starts to swear because there’s no way she can stand up by herself at the moment, he drapes the shirt over Steve’s arm. “Guess I’ll go get Bruce some dry clothes.”

“He’s going to kill you if he finds out you went back into his room.”

“Can’t be helped. He’s going to be soaked through by the time he gets her out of that shower.”

And that is why Bruce comes to be wearing a bathrobe, stretched out on the couch with Natasha cuddled up beside him, all but lost in a button-down shirt that more than covers her, when Phil comes to check on them an hour later. “I hear Natasha’s dying?” he whispers, not sounding as if the news upset him in the least. Of course, he’d heard it from Clint so he’d probably heard a very embellished tale. “Anything I can get either of you?”

“I think we’re set. Steve’s been good about refilling her water glass and everyone else is staying away as requested. She’s sleeping pretty peacefully now. I think the worst has passed.”

“Nasty stuff, death by food poisoning. You know that Clint has rewritten his will? He’s fairly convinced he’s next.”

“Oh, he’ll be the next to die.” Bruce smiles, a stunning sight to see, full of beauty and wrath. “This bathrobe was in the very back of my closet. He had to look through a lot of space before he found it. It’s probably for the best that his will is current.”

Phil grins before letting his face settle back down into the normal impassive stare he always wore. “Message received. Tell Natasha I hope she’s feeling better. I’ll swing back by tomorrow for those ledgers.”

Both men still when Natasha unwinds herself from Bruce’s side. She gives Phil a bleary smile before turning over and rearranging herself against Bruce once again. When she is snoring lightly once again, Bruce nods. “Probably a good idea. I don’t think I could get up right now if I wanted to.”


End file.
